


soul is rotting

by seawebs



Category: Dead Like Me, Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-24 01:03:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seawebs/pseuds/seawebs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal Lecter is eleven years old when his soul expires and his body lives on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	soul is rotting

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure this has been done (and better) but indulge me? 
> 
> ( + I've only seen the first few eps of Dead Like Me, but Brian Fuller's universes just fit together so well. And then this happened, I'm sorry. Unbeta-ed.)

Hannibal Lecter is eleven years old when he is first touched by death. He is eleven years old and he is clutching his little sister's hand and he knows they are dying, and he thinks maybe that's okay. Because there is a war raging and they are just children, and he remembers his mum yelling at them to get out and run before there were guns going off and then there was all that blood. They did run, and they didn't stop running after much later. There is no going back and people are dying constantly and Hannibal wonders what happens after, but he'll find out soon. 

"I'm hungry," Misha whispers but there's nothing to eat but snow, and the snow just makes you colder.

"I'm hungry," she whispers and there is nothing he can do but grip her hand tighter and drag her on, through the forest, hoping to find somewhere to spend the night, or someone to help them.

"I know." Hannibal Lecter tells his little sister and tries not to cry, because he is older and he has to take care of her. "Please stop saying that."

***

They meet the men a few days later, and everything happens so fast. "We can help you!" they tell them, and they have guns but they aren't shooting, so Hannibal decides to trust them. He shouldn't have.

Hannibal Lecter is eleven years old, and it's the year 1944 and everybody is fighting for their lives, soldiers on the front lines, captives in the camps, and so, so many who have nothing to do with the war, just because. Hannibal Lecter was supposed to starve, but he's eleven years old and the men who take his sister remember that, if not their humanity. They remember being eleven years old and learning how to shoot, remember dreaming of war and honor when the hunger gets too much. They can't imagine what this boy dreams of. But 1944 isn't the first time people starve, and it won't be the last, and they do what the have to, and hold onto the thought of the life they are saving as they feed him his sister.

***

"I'm hungry," says Misha, and closes her eyes, and the man across the fire looks at her, the fire reflecting in his eyes. She's just a little girl, and her breath is leaving her, and he is starving. Meat is meat, he thinks, and looks at the boy sitting next to her, face painted red in the flames. He doesn't know his name, but he can see how tightly his arm is wrapped around the girl, and he thinks that it's a shame, but he'll be a survivor. What must be done must be done, and he's starving and meat is meat.

***

Hannibal Lecter is eleven years old when his soul expires and his body lives on. He is eleven years old when his sister's heart stops beating, but he knows she's still inside that still, quiet body when they tear it apart and gobble it up, and he hates every bite he takes, but he chews and he swallows and he feels his soul rotting away inside.

Hannibal Lecter is eleven years old, and he should have died that night, holding his sister's hand tightly, laying down to rest.

It's not his fault. Hannibal Lecter is guilty of many things, but his soul was never his to save.

(There should have been a man with them that night, a guardian with kind eyes and an American accent who turned up seemingly out of nowhere, and he should have sat next to them and caressed Misha's forehead, squeezed Hannibal's shoulder, shown them a gesture of comfort in a very cold night. He never arrives, stuck on the front lines, carrying soldier's souls over the threshold, and it's him who has to collect every single one of Hannibal's victims, as penance for a job undone.)

  
***

Cannibal doesn't cut it, not really.

Soul eater, he thinks, as he watches Hannibal Lecter prepare his next meal. There is ritual to his killings, there is beauty in the way he is inhuman. With every bite, he tries to regain what he lost so many years ago, trying to ingest their souls like he ingested his sister the night he should have died. It doesn't work, of course it doesn't. His reaper touches them before they meet their end (a mercy) and so he never stops trying, never stops killing, until it is his time to finally, finally be touched.


End file.
